Reply With QuoteUnless these systems input the outside temperatures, the thermostat settings will need to be tweaked depending on the weather.
Yes, I have 24 of them and 4 room stats that speak to the underfloor heating controller. It's all ready to go live, here's hoping it all works as it should.Originally Posted by eagletower
In theory, this is the home hearing panacea, infinate zones (well 12 per panel but you can have multiple panels) and flexible programming etc.
I'll have the UFH controlled so that the dining room is low most of the week, utility room, kitchen and morning room all on 9-5. Lounge low until 5pm then on until 11pm etc. Kids rooms on from 6-9 then off until 7pm etc. Each zone (and you can bind multiple rads in different rooms to create zones like porch, hall x2 cloak and wc all as one zone) can be switched on/off 6 times each day. Overrides, holiday modes etc are also features.
I'll post back with my experiences. Cost me a fortune, won't pay itself back for a long time it's more about convenience for me.
Unless these systems input the outside temperatures, the thermostat settings will need to be tweaked depending on the weather.
Most of them do. They get the outside temperature from the net.
Look forward to an update. I've been reading your thread on your house - looks incredible.
A house I am hoping to buy is a hotchpotch of extensions. Loft conversion with 2 bedrooms and , rear and side extension but the older original part of the house is solid brick. So all the rooms I am assuming retain heat and heat up at different rates so a zone system just sounds a lot better than a single thermostat .
All these connected devices, will they ultimately have a negative influence on your wifi speeds?
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No not really. They will actually transmit minimal data
Am enjoying my new nest thermostat and mobile apps for all the family! Remains to be seen if the learning algorithm is any good, I'm just going to let it do its thing and see. You can disable the "intelligence" and just program it like a congenital one too
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I won't even be getting a smart meter unless I have to. I have nothing against smart connected, but just don't see any benefits for our family at this time, just headaches when things inevitably go wrong.
I have underfloor heating on the ground floor, permanently on in Winter with thermostats set accordingly - usually 19c is about right. For the upstairs floors it's radiators on a programmer, with a remote thermostat in the top floor which will switch all the rads off if it reaches the required temp, regardless of what the timer says. In addition each radiator has its own thermostat so I can turn off guest rooms when they're not being used. We only moved into the house last year and had the heating sorted out within a month of arriving, a new boiler and the remote 'stat have seen my gas bill almost halved, which amazed me. When I had it installed the engineers couldn't think of a smart system that could do everything I wanted to without costing a fortune, and being pretty useless. I live in a rural area and internet once you leave the house is non existent!
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Hi... sorry for the delay in getting back... it should work on those devices... the question came back as to whether you were on the latest OS?
Ben
My setup consists of:
Vera Lite Z-Wave Hub
Z-Wave motion sensors & plug-in on/off modules
Hue Lights
Sonos speakers
Nest thermostat & smoke detectors
Harmony hub
The Vera runs most of this quite nicely - with some sw plug-ins & a little dash of IFTTT.
Also got an Echo Dot on order :)
Reading this thread has made me wonder if I should try some other bits - Samsung Smartthings anyone?
Hi,
thanks, and yes to latest version of Android. The question would be why the google Play store says it isn't compatible? I did have a very poorly worded email response from honeywell support also saying it was compatible, but reading the email I am not really sure:
Anyway, events have overtaken things and due to a central heating failure early last week, I ended up having a Hive system fitted at the weekend at discount to replace a faulty wireless thermostat. It is wonderful and I have already added a few sensors to it for home security. 'Just works' in true Apple tradition. Planning to expand it some more to remote the garden & hut lighting (replacing an old X-10 system!). The app is really easy to use (even the Mrs can cope...) and has basic 'Recipe' functions so sensors can trigger lights etc which is nice but a little more complexity would be welcome. Has compatibility with IFTTT too now.
'Since the Nexus is an Android the application that is compatible with it to control you thermostat remotely is the "Total Connect Comfort", the icon has a "72 º" and says "Honeywell" below it.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...lComfort&hl=es
If you have any further questions, please contact us again. Thank you for contacting Honeywell. '
The link takes you to Google Play Spain...
Last edited by Gruntfuttock; 18th October 2016 at 19:39.
Of course the fun begins when the back-end stuff or comms gets a little dodgy.
Last night there was either a 2 minute delay between me saying "Alexa, bedroom light on" and it happening or it not happening at all (despite the command being acknowledged). This was similar for other Hive functions.
As I've removed the switch on the wall, this proved problematic.
A question for m'learned colleagues on the Nest thermostat.
Quick caveat: I got this fitted before I really read up on it and I suspect it may not be the most useful for me....
I have a four-storey townhouse, and the heating is problematic. Basement floor is arctic all year round (nice in the summer), and the house gets progressively hotter up to the top.
Thermostat used to be on the ground floor, which meant that the temp in the basement was never detected and so the heating never came on downstairs, consequently always cold.
I've had a NEST thermostat installed in the basement, but I've had to switch off the learning stuff, as it keeps assuming there's no one around (we don't go downstairs that much).
I did wonder whether replacing our mains smoke detectors with Nest ones would help, as then you have a motion detector on all floors, which presumably means the learning algorithms would work much better?
As it is, I'm currently using the Nest thermostat as a dumb scheduler, set to the temp of the basement, with the other rads in the house set to low on their individual valves. The rad valves are the ones that go from 1-5, not specific thermostatic temperature ones.
Any thoughts as to how I can improve things? Right now, it's seeming like the Nest wasn't really that good an idea....
Check this out
http://getconnected.honeywell.com/en...NP2BoCGDLw_wcB
JC180 has it installed in his renovation so will post his view once its up and running and if I move to the house I want I'll be adding this. Give you more control and heat in rooms that need it and less in those that don't.
Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I don't think that will work for me. For some reason best known to the house builders, our houses were not built with each floor on a circuit, the rads are all powered by vertical pipes running down the house, so rads on the same floor are not on the same circuit. This was a reason why the Hive system wasn't regarded as being particularly beneficial, as the ability to add multiple zones wouldn't help in our stupid houses.
Unless i have a separate thermostat in every room. But then, it would make more sense to have each rad with its own thermostatic valve, presumably?
And I'm not about to start re-plumbing the house...
EDIT:
Actually, all of my rads already have these valves on them, so I guess they are thermostatic valves?
I guess one solution is to turn the basement temp uo high, and turn the thermostatic valves on all the rads on the other floors down until a happy level is reached? I guess just a lott of trial and error is involved that way?
Apologies for the stoopid questions, I realise i must be coming across as a proper numpty...
Last edited by MadeOfCheese; 19th October 2016 at 16:24.
You sure that wouldn't help? With the above system , each radiator has it's on TRV that is controlled by the main thermostat. So it shuts down any radiators that don't need heat and turn on the ones that do.
It looks like you to have TRVs so the Honeywell Evo would work with yours.
You don't need to have separate circuits etc.
I'm no plumber but I looked into this in quite a lot of detail and looks like a great retrofit option.
Hmm, okay I'll take another closer look. Thanks.
Sorry it was an issue... one of the challenges with getting an answer with Honeywell (and I tried) is that we don't install any of it... I had a bunch of people trying to help, but, didn't get too far...
Hive is good is good though... biggest selling smart home platform in the U.K.
Ben
My 'Dot' has just been delivered so I will be setting it up this evening.
Anyone got any tips on setting one up for the first time?
I got my Dot as well, if you have a BT homehub you'll need to separate 2.4 & 5ghz wifi or the Dot wont connect to it
Ok thanks, I'm on TalkTalk so hopefully I'll be ok.
Whilst the Hive system does display the outside temperature it is not used to influence the thermostat setting and cannot be used in any way. Purely for information/decoration at the moment.
It would certainly be useful to be able to start the central heating automatically say half an hour early if the outside temperature was below a certain amount. But there is no way to do this with Hive. Even looking at the IFTTT page for Hive doesn't reveal anything to do this as such but the outside temperature can be used in a Recipe to Boost the heating. If that could be schedule aware it would be useful.
Last edited by Gruntfuttock; 21st October 2016 at 06:03.
Years ago there was a centroller system... it worked on the basis that it measured the internal temperature and worked out what time it needed to come in order to achieve a certain temp by a certain time... this seems like a far more sensible way of doing it?
Maybe via IFTTT you could say if x degreees internaly at y time turn on the heating... you could do this in certain increments maybe?
EDIT - or maybe if it's x degrees (15,16,17) at a fixed time (say 5am) then turn the heating on @ y time (6.15, 6.30, 7)
Last edited by Wolfie; 21st October 2016 at 08:09.
My danfoss thermostat can do that. So you can configure it so the 'on' is when it REALLY switches on or the 'on' time is when you want it to be at that temperature. So, for example, if it's a cold morning it might switch on a little earlier that day.
Of course I'm a tight a** so I set it to be on when it's on and not before hand ;-)
btw this is with a standard 7 day danfoss thermostat... no 'smart' involved.
As well as starting the heating depending on the outside temperature the thermostat should also be set accordingly - 18°C on a cold day will feel colder than in the summer for example.
Seems all of these things are style over substance and they could/should do a lot more.
Got a dot last night. Very clever and great value - although not so good on UK footy.
Still not sure on this stuff yet, not keen on the always listening - but can still see me buying a few more for different rooms
Does it keep telling you that Wednesday are rubbish
It is smart, just not connected! Seems more sensible doing it this way then by outside temp...
Hahaha....!Does it keep telling you that Wednesday are rubbish
Touche
In this light the following comes as no surprise.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37738823
Bought an Amazon Dot at the weekend to tide me over until Google Home is released in the UK. Very impressed. It can control the Hive system plus my small but growing collection of Smart Things. Internet radio and Amazon music on tap too. Can't see me using it for much else (until Sonos compatibility is released) but this is enough for now and well worth £50.
I listened to the chief European Amazon chap last week in Amsterdam talk about how this will develop
Think of your commute... this is how they see it developing... being far more proactive
1... You - "What's my commute like?"
2... Alexa (unprompted) - "you're commute will be 25 mins this morning Ben"
3... Alexa (unprompted) - "Ben, there's some roadworks so, you may want to leave for work 10 mins earlier"
We have found the shopping list function very useful, all the items added at home appear on both our phones, easy to look at your phone to find what's needed. Also the calendar function is helpful with4 kids.
Yes, just discovered this and it works out the box. I has assumed that something needed setting up first but no, it just works. I use Google Keep for this normally but Amazon will never allow integration with a that. I know that Google Home allows dictation of lists directly into Keep.
A lot of what Echo can do is pure gimmick and will never be used beyond initial novelty value (Hey Siri...go away!) but for me it does a few core things very well and saves me opening up the Mac or looking for a phone to do something.
Interesting things this week have been:
- our Echo responding to the Amazon advert on the TV. It would lead to an interesting situation if the TV Echo was asked to make an on-line purchase and ours followed suit.
- our Echo being determined that it needed to respond to something during episode 6 of Westworld (about 47-48 minutes in). We played the sequence back repeatedly and every time the Echo thought it heard something and needed to respond.
Online purchases can be PIN protected from the app. I set mine straight away and you certainly should if you have kids in the house! However, you have to speak the PIN to Alexa so it may not stay secret for long.
Recently added a few Hue lights. Have 4 of them now, a couple of lamps and some motion sensors. Clever stuff really. Also bought a few Echo dots which link up pretty well with my nest and the hue. Will be much better when they can control sonos too.
Hi all. So in my day job I design LED lighting. A nice new connected system which is available is called Casambi. It can be retrofit into existing ceiling roses or in the ceiling void. The modules are small and sit in line between your lamp and your wall switch. They can also be wired into the wall switches. The modules are very small.
The app is free and available on iOS and Android. Schedules can be set, lights grouped by room etc. It also interfaces with the Philips Hue.
**Full disclosure, I do not work for these guys but have simply checked out their products and looked at integrating them into my companies lights. I liked the product so now my house is fully wired with it!**
I have added some products from Energenie to my house. 5 remote control plus and a light switch as part of the building work we are having done and I must say I am impressed. They all work as expected timers ect and remote control on app. But I added a motion sensor to the light switch and it comes on when the door is opened less than 10seconds and goes off when there is not movement detected. Alerts to my phone when it's triggered. Plus you can build recipes in IFTTT that uses the switches. When sun set happens turn on, ect integration with a lot of products and my nest is now integrated too. Well worth a look in my opinion and even if you chose another make or have hue or another set up the IFTTT website is great for using with those.
My wife is quite intrigued by the Amazon Echo ad.
What exactly does it do that is of use?
Cheers,
Neil.
Ive just bought an Amazon dot and a couple of hue lights. If you've got a Sonos Zone Player or Connect you can plug it into that and ask your dot to play anything from Spotify or whatever through the Sonos.
Last edited by Maris; 20th November 2016 at 22:07.
Why am I so embedded with iTunes?!!! Grhhh
You can copy all your iTunes music to Amazon, it's not that hard to do, think you get 250 songs for free and then you have to pay a fee for unlimited think it's £29 per year but that's just from memory or pay for music unlimited on Amazon for £3.99 a month 40 million songs
mmhhh... might be an option... thanks for the info
switching services, now that is interesting new business for someone... I have all my CD's downloaded, but, as they are MP3 format, I guess they'd fit into other non iTunes formats too...
I like iTunes, but, it's becoming a pain to use with my Sonos as loads of the tracks don't appear when used direct through the App... which is next to useless
You can burn your iTunes music to CDs and re-rip as mp3.
I buy CDs.
I just put CD's in the CD player and play them.
Cheers,
Neil.
people stlil buy CDs???? get with the times...
How about a house that sends a tweet whenever the letterbox or loft hatch is opened ?
http://www.dreamgreenhouse.com/index.php
People still buy watches, get with the times!!!!!
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